Tennessee Homeschoolers Voice Objections Re Standardized Tests

By Theo Emery, Staff writer of the Tennessean

Home-schooled students and their parents, along with private school pupils, flooded the halls of the General Assembly on Wednesday to oppose legislation that would impose public school testing requirements on all school-age children.

A bill from state Rep. G. A. Hardaway, a Memphis Democrat, would expand state-required standardized testing. Hardaway requested a three-week delay, saying he needed to work further on the legislation. He said he was concerned about measuring student performance across the state. "I want to allay any fears that the committee or the attendees may have that I'm out to get the home-schoolers or the independent schools," he said at a hearing during which children sat cross-legged in a carpeted center aisle and on their parents' laps.

Several lawmakers reported getting thousands of calls and e-mails about the issue. J. Claiborne Thornton III, president of the Tennessee Home Education Association, said requiring tests would limit parents' flexibility to teach what they wanted.

"Part of the reason people enjoy being in a free society is that that they can believe what they want to believe — within bounds — and they can teach that to their children," he said.

All students in the state, whether they're in private, public or home schools, are required to follow state-recognized methods that include testing and assessments, according to Bruce Opie, director of legislation and policy for the Tennessee Department of Education, but students educated at home or in private schools are not required to take state-mandated standardized tests.

Hannah Bilbery, 32, teaches first-grade son Mason at home and said she doesn't want the state legislating her lessons. "They're not the ones educating the children, but they're going to be administrating the tests," she said. TE■